Is a municipal public bank in Portland's future?

Too-Big-To-Fail banks are tied to high risk speculative investing for the benefit of the bank's major stock holders.

Currently, the city's deposits are held by private banking establishments. What could happen if, instead of supporting those banks via our city's use of those banks, we created a locally owned public bank to cycle city revenues back into the local economy? How much additional revenue from such a cycling of city revenues into a city public bank would be generated for investment in affordable and low-income housing, infrastructure and community-based economic development?

Walt McRee, chair of the Public Banking Institute, will address how public banking is being explored around the nation, including in Seattle and Santa Fe, and how Portland could benefit from exploring the options and opportunities presented by formation of a municipal public bank.

Location: First Unitarian Church, Eliot Chapel, SW 12th and Salmon, Portland OR.
Date/time: Wednesday, Feb. 24, 7 PM, doors open at 6:30 P
Sponsored by Economic Justice Action Group of First Unitarian Church, Alliance for Democracy
Admission: $5-20 donation requested, but no one turned away for lack of funds

Antonin Scalia died on February 13. Obama might be able to nominate a justice and have that person confirmed by a Democratic-majority Senate. The Democrats have a reasonably good chance to retake the Senate majority in the November 2016 election (8 seats now held by Dems are up; 17 seats now held by Rs are up). The 2017 session of Congress starts January 3, 2017. Obama does not leave office until January 20, 2017. So he can nominate the next justice during that 17-day period in the 115th Congress and get confirmation from a Democratic-majority Senate, regardless of who wins the 2016 election for President.

Not enough time in January 2017, you say? Obama could nominate much earlier than that, in the 114th Congress, so that all the hearings would be concluded prior to January 2017.

The minority Rs in January 2017 would filibuster, you say? The Democrats could use the "Constitutional option," as they did in 2011 over a bill about Chinese currency manipulation. The filibuster can be eliminated any time a majority in the Senate want to eliminate it. But the Democrats have been exceedingly weak in exercising that authority, when they have had Senate majorities.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/06/harry-reid-senate-precedent_n_9...

Click here or the cartoon to the right for a much larger version.

The following letter written by OR Progressive Party State Council member, David Delk, was published in the Oregonian January 1, 2016, and calls for the rejection of the Trans Pacific Partnership corporate trade agreement.

Trans-Pacific Partnership:

The Oregonian editorial board thinks "it's tricky to estimate how many jobs are directly tied to trade, much less how many would be created if the (Trans-Pacific Partnership) is signed." Tricky, indeed, when you only account for part of the jobs equation. Missing from this equation is how many jobs will be destroyed as a result of this agreement.

The U.S.-South Korea trade agreement was the last to go into effect. President Obama said that because of increased export opportunities, 70,000 new jobs would be created and that our trade balance with South Korea would improve. Yet since then, our trade deficit with South Korea has grown, meaning that those new jobs never materialized. In fact, during the agreement's first three years, the trade deficit increased by $11.8 billion, meaning the loss of 75,000 good-paying American jobs.

So it is important to ask the right questions. Since the agreement will encourage off-shoring of investments and jobs and will do nothing to stop currency manipulation, the likelihood of a favorable result from the TPP corporate trade agreement is slim. The TPP should be rejected.

The Oregon Progressive Party opposes the death penalty and deplores the mass execution of 47 people by Saudi Arabia, including the peaceful Shia cleric, Sheik Nimr Al-Nimr. These were only the latest of 157 executions committed by Saudi Arabia during the past year. These executions, coupled with Saudi Arabia's ending of the ceasefire in Yemen, have dramatically escalated tensions in the region.

Similarities certainly exist between these executions, which included beheadings, to those committed by ISIS, so roundly denounced by the western press and governments in order to build support for continuing and growing military intervention in the affairs of Middle Eastern nations.

The reaction of the American government to the ISIS committed executions differs from its reaction to these Saudi Arabian executions. Rather than commit military resources to the defeat of Saudi Arabia as we have with ISIS, the United States instead approved military contracts worth tens of millions of dollar to them. As reported by Paul Gottinger in Reader Supported News, the U.S. recently approved contracts with Raytheon ($24 million), Advanced Electronics ($12 million), and Boeing (multi-millions).

The status of the United States as the world's largest military weapons manufacturer and exporter, selling to the world's worst violators of human rights, enrages people around the world, making America less safe. The resources which America spends on war would be best spent on the needs of the American people, as well as people around the world. Instead, America uses those funds to build up the military-industrial-Congressional complex and enrich the CEO's of Amecian military contractors.

Source: http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/34426-focus-us-appro...

The Oregon Progressive Party has begun actively collecting signatures on a new statewide initiative petition (IP 77). This petition would:

• allow Oregon to join the ranks of 46 other states with limits on money in the political process, and
   
• ensure that the actual sources of that money are disclosed to the public.

Oregon is the only state whose constitution has been interpreted to prohibit limits on contributions and expenditures to influence the outcome of elections, be they candidate elections or initiatives/referenda. As a result, Oregon elections are among the most expensive in the nation. The Oregonian reports that only New Jersey campaigns are more expensive on a per capita basis.
 
The chief petitioners are:

• Liz Trojan, State Council, Oregon Progressive Party
• Rob Harris, IPO Caucus, Independent Party of Oregon
• Seth Woolley, Member, Coordinating Committee, Pacific Green Party

We Need Your Help

We need to collect 1,000 valid Oregon voter signatures in order to get a ballot title for the initiative. You can help us with this effort. Please contact David e. Delk, Co-Chair of the Oregon Progressive Party, for instructions and petition sheets. David can be contacted at davidafd@ymail.com or 503.232.5495.

How the Petition Reads

It is a model of simplicity.  It reads:

Be it enacted by the People of the State of Oregon, there is added an Article II, Section 25, of the Constitution of Oregon:

Oregon laws consistent with the freedom of speech guarantee of the United States Constitution may:

1. limit contributions and expenditures (including transfers of money or resources) to influence the outcome of any election; and

2. require disclosure of the true sources and amounts of such contributions or expenditures (a)to the public and (b) in the communications they fund.

United States foreign policy in the Middle East has been a policy of forced regime change for decades. A few examples include:

• 1953 overthrow of the elected Iranian government of Mossadegh by U.S. and British forces
   
• 1958 U.S. invasion of Lebanon with 15,000 troops
   
• 1963 CIA-aided coup deposing the Qasim government of Iraq, which 5 years earlier had ousted the U.S.-allied Iraqi monarchy
   
• 2002 invasion of Afghanistan, followed by a decade+ of occupation
   
• 2003 invasion of Iraq, followed by a decade+ of occupation

The U.S. has been pushing regime change in Syria since at least 2001. These policies should end.

U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have cost thousands of American lives, tens of thousands of grievously injured Americans, and the lives of hundreds of thousands Afghanis and Iraqis. They have displaced millions of Afghanis and Iraqis who fled their homes to save their lives. $2 trillion American taxpayer dollars have been spent. The wars have accomplished nothing, apart from creating an environment that bred the creation of ISIS and allowed it to thrive and expand.  Now the U.S. is pursuing the same counterproductive policies to fight ISIS in Iraq and Syria.

John Pilger wrote in 2014:

A telling example is the rise to power of Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge, who had much in common with today's Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). They, too, were ruthless medievalists who began as a small sect. They, too, were the product of a US-made apocalypse, this time in Southeast Asia. . . .

Al-Qaeda - like Pol Pot's "jihadists" - seized the opportunity provided by the onslaught of "shock and awe" and the civil war that followed. "Rebel" Syria offered even greater rewards, with CIA and Gulf state ratlines of weapons, logistics and money running through Turkey. . . .

ISIS is the progeny of those in Washington, London and Paris who, in conspiring to destroy Iraq, Syria and Libya, committed an epic crime against humanity. Like Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, ISIS is the mutation of a Western state terror dispensed by a venal imperial elite undeterred by the consequences of actions taken at great distance. Their culpability is unmentionable in "our" societies, making accomplices of those who suppress this critical truth.

All human life should be protected. French warplanes carried out airstrikes in urban Syrian areas using its 12 jet fighters based in Jordan and the U.A.E. for months prior to the brutal killing of innocents in France. The government of France saw no outrage in bombing the Syrians.  Nor does the U.S. government.

The solution is not more war. The solution is for western powers (particularly the U.S.) to stop their decades-long practice of military intervention to create or prop up compliant regimes, regardless of the wishes of the people who live there.

A recent poll for the Pew Center finds that only liberal Democrats think that they are "winning" more than "losing" on issues that are important to them.  I guess constant military adventures, the continuing destruction of the middle class, the rise of the billionaire class, and the two-tier justice system are not important to liberal Democrats.  Because Americans surely are not "winning" on those issues.

CEO Richard Master Masterminds Full Medicare for All - Just when the prospects for single-payer or full Medicare for everyone, with free choice of doctors and hospitals, appear to be going nowhere, from Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley comes a stirring that could go national and make single-payer a reality. Throwing … Continue reading → [Ralph Nader]

The Oregon Progressive Party calls on Oregon's Attorney General to follow the lead of New York state's Attorney General, who on November 9th, 2015 “ordered DraftKings and FanDuel ... to immediately stop accepting bets from New York residents.”

NY Attorney General Schneiderman described these daily fantasy sports sites to be “...leaders of a massive, multi-billion-dollar scheme intended to....fleece sports fans across the county.”

Oregon's sports fans are no less cheated by the operation of these on-line betting parlors. Why silence from Oregon Attorney General Rosenblum?

The Oregon Progressive Party throughout its 7-year history has consistently opposed the legalization of gambling and "government promotion of gambling, including video poker, video slots, and approval of private casinos." We call upon the Oregon Attorney General to order fantasy sports gambling operations to stop accepting bets from Oregon residents.

Greedy tobacco companies continue their efforts to entice children to smoke by paying merchants to place tobacco products at low counter levels in stores, where children will see them, and by packaging tobacco products to be attractive to children. They look like candy.

SmokeFree Oregon has produced television ads calling our attention to these practices and asks that we take action.

The Oregon Progressive Party calls on our Legislature to pass laws banning the display of tobacco products in stores, period.  Anyone who want to buy tobacco products should have to ask at the check-out counter.  If the Legislature will not do this, then our county and city governments should do so.

The long-standing State Integrity Investigation of the Center for Public Integrity and Public Radio International has granted Oregon an overall F grade on avoiding corruption in state government.

The ranking is accompanied by a scathing, accurate article about Oregon's failure in fighting corruption.

Oregon's overall rank fell from 14th to 42nd, the biggest drop of any state.

We have been saying for years that Oregon's lack of limits on political contributions and repeal of laws requiring that political ads identify their funders makes Oregon government inherently corruptible.  Now the leading national investigation of State integrity agrees with us.

After much deliberation, the Progressive Party has voted to support the Iran Nuclear Agreement (INA) because it lifts sanctions and is the result of international stakeholder diplomacy. This path to peace outweighs our reservation of supporting actions that promote the nuclear power industry.

We support the peaceful diplomatic resolution of international conflict. We are against any future wars and we are against the current sanctions which are punishing the people of Iran.

We urge Senator Wyden to join Senator Merkley and vote in support of the Iranian nuclear agreement.

Dear Senator Sanders,

The Oregon Progressive Party has been asked by members and non-members alike to endorse your presidential campaign or to even nominate you in the Oregon primary election next year.

We are quite enthusiastic about many of your positions. You clearly understand the American people need and want fundamental systemic reform: Single payer health care to remove the corporate yoke imposed on our health; a $15 minimum wage; opposition to the Trans Pacific Partnership and other corporate trade agreements waiting in the wings; Black Lives Matter; Free Tuition; break-up of the Too-Big-To-Fail Banks; imposing a transaction tax on Wall Street; ridding us of the tax havens; and more.

But we seek to know your positions on other issues you have not prominently addressed, at least up to this point in your speeches.

• Israel/Palestine - Your past support for Israel in their military aggression again the Palestinians troubles us. Last year you appear to have supported Israel's slaughter in Gaza along with 99 other US Senators. Can we expect that represents your future stance on Israel/Palestine?
• Military Industrial Complex - President Eisenhower's farewell speech warned Americans of the power of the Military Industrial Complex (we now need to add Congressional to the name). That complex's power has only grown since then, and the expense of maintaining that power undermines America's ability to finance many of the other reforms you advocate. Should military spending be drastically reduced?
• Election Integrity - Voting in America is conducted on privately owned, privately managed voting machines by companies which are owned by major funders of the Republican Party. Prior to the election of Barark Obama, this was an issue, but it has since disappeared from the national conversation. Nonetheless, the issue remains. Do you recognize this as a problem and have solutions in mind?
• Amending the US Constitution - Your support for a constitutional amendment to overturn the US Supreme Court's Citizens United decision is well known. However, many critics of that decision have noted that it fails to address the problem of corporate domination created by other court decisions. They have called for an amendment to the US Constitution which says that money is not speech (in order to address court decisions prior to Citizens United) and that corporations are not people (to address court decisions going back to 1886 - Santa Clara County v Southern Pacific Railroad - and even before the Civil War -Dartmouth College v Woodward). Will you support an expansion of your stated position to include advocating for an amendment to the US Constitution to establish that money is not speech and that corporations do not have constitutional rights?

We look forward to hearing your responses. Thank you.

Regards,

David e. Delk, Co-Chair
Oregon Progressive Party